


Supercriminal Chronicles

by laZardo



Series: RMWT: Air, Land & Seadweller [3]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human/Troll Society, Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Gen, Real Men Wear Tights
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-09
Updated: 2015-04-18
Packaged: 2018-01-07 17:37:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1122578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laZardo/pseuds/laZardo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In this world, there are superheroes, supervillains, their entire cast of supporting elements, and everyone else in their way. These are their stories.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bananaramses](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bananaramses/gifts), [SergeantMeow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SergeantMeow/gifts).



**== > FILE OPEN**

 

  
**Nova Beforra Favela**  
**Rio de Janeiro, Brazil**

It's another picturesque sunny day in this picturesque city. Crisp, mile-long beaches stretching to the horizon, O Cristo Redentor watching over the flock and the aqueduct cable cars under the quiet din of the traffic latest tropical beats thumping across the air.

In the less-picturesque parts of this town, there's a war going on.

Well, seems that every day heading up to election season there's a war going on down here and the city's other slums. Dirty cops, favela gangs, and occasionally those black-suited "elite squads" that come in just to ~~pacify~~ randomly kick ass and leave.

And of course, there's you.

You are La Bicuda and unlike the other factions in this particular loadgaper of a district, you can actually go in, take care of business and not have to worry about the corpses you leave behind. That and you can occasionally hear some of your own raps blared across the local _baile funk_ parties, which underscores the soundtrack to your shenanigans as you go about your business.

Today's business is _V---ERY_ special, as you are now on your way to meet someone  _V---ERY_ important. You dart across rooftops with your 2x3dent strapped to your back, because every now and then you still have to do some climbing. Fortunately, your climbing gloves are a specially-designed part of your supermercenary disguise, protecting claws that your stylist took the better part of 2 hours designing and painting.

Your non-super persona needs to look as good as you fight, naturally.

You can spot your VIP's current hiding spot from at least a couple of hundred meters away - which is still fairly good viewing distance from deep in the favela. It's almost lodged into the hillside, close to the boundary between nature and the sentient species slowly encroaching on it. You're fortunate that you've gotten in with this particular gang boss - or spent some of your time spying on "dat bass" to know where he likes to hide in a crisis.

You eventually find yourself atop that particularly out-of-the-way shanty, although "out of the way" is purely subjective when this entire part of the city is already considered as such by tourists. Your landing is greeted by a pair of holes suddenly exploding out of the metal rooftop.

You punch your 2x3dent into one of the roof tiles and pull it up to find a rather buff-looking orangeblood and a couple of his human henchmen pointing his slingshotkind and their pistols, respectively, at you.

"Whoa, hey, is this how you greet your motherglubbin' savior?"

"Gogdammit, you surprised us." The mudblood gestures to his human companions to put their pistols away as you drop down into his hideout, landing as gracefully as a seadweller should. "Were you followed?"

"Beach, I'd know if I was being followed," you sneer. He nods in understanding, as you blow out a bubble of the gum you've been chewing. "Speaking of which..."

There are footsteps on the roof again almost on cue, once again causing the gangsters to point their guns at the roof and shoot again. This time, nobody removes the roof tile, instead there's a rattling thud like someone's just collapsed on it.

"Said I'd know if I was being followed, rayt?" you reply, jabbing your 2x3dent upward and pulling down the same roof panel you had just replaced.

This time, someone literally drops in, landing with a fishy splat on the concrete floor between you and the gangsters. He twitches and moans with pain, grabbing his arms and legs which have clearly been shot with an upward trajectory as he bleeds an unseemingly bright green all over the floor of this crapshack.

"I didn't say I wasn't," you conclude.

"Is that Gecko!?" one of the henchmen exclaims, loud enough for the others to try to shoosh him.

You raise an eyebrow and gesture angrily at the vigilante you have just gifted them. "You fuckin' blind? Who else dresses like this?"

Gecko. That masked, neon-green dreadlocked limeblood capoeira "guardian" of the favela. Your arch-nemesis and about the only motherglubber around here with the shameglobes to take on all of the gangs and all of the corrupt cops and even the BOPE every now and then. All of them.

You knew the moment you showed your beautiful pink-and-white-goggled mug in this part of town, that vigilante limey would raise his own ugly mug and track you down. You knew he couldn't resist taking the bait, and you lured him straight here.

Well, it's not like he can take them on anymore. The rewards for idealism.

"Shit, thank you," the worried mudblood adds. "You'd better get out of here. Don't know who else he might have brought along."

You nod and look up, preparing to leave from whence you came, but stop.

"Oh, speakin' of which," you say. "One more thing."

"What is it?"

You respond by immediately impaling one of his henchmen with your 2x3dent, before grabbing it out of him and giving it a good throw to impale the other one before he can get over the initial surprise to fire his gun at all.

"What the- what the fuck is this!?" the mudblood shouts, drawing his measly specibus as he's suddenly reeling from the violent death of his friends. "I thought you were-"

You immediately cut him off by impaling him in the arm, pinning him to the floor with your 2x3dent before he can even charge at you.

You grin in this tough guy's face, your fangs shining with a predatory gleam. It's not the first time you've seen someone like this reduced to a sniveling, bleeding pile, but it never fails to entertain you

"Sorry babe, but I'm an amfishious girl and compared to my new fronds," you gloat, giving your 2x3dent a little twist for good measure, "you're just small fry."

You give your 2x3dent a good tug to withdraw it from this basshole's arm nice and painful. His screams almost make you laugh as a burly human clad in the black outfit of those goddamned Skulls kicks the door down. You don't even flinch from the impact, instead using your 2x3dent to catapult you back onto the roof to make your escape amidst an almost scripted fusillade of submachinegun fire.

You said you knew if you were being followed. You didn't tell him that you were.

Sucka.

With another leap, you plunge back into the fray of the favela maze, with gangsters fleeing vainly against a sustained assault by the so-called elite squad.

It's a lot easier for you to flee than them, although the humans and lowerbloods scurrying around the slums like squeakbeasts are mostly able to find hiding places. You eventually manage to duck into one yourself, an abandoned former gambling den with a reasonably good view of the nearest passageway that can fit a car.

From this vantage point, you can see what look like a number of those black-suited thugs loading a troll bleeding a conspicuously-bright green into an ambulance while trying to block a local journalist trying to get a peek into the perimeter.

Mission glubbing aconchlished.

* * *

 

**Weeks later, but not many...**

Time passes and before you know it and you find yourself in the plaza not too far from the slumlord's old castle, which has already been deleted from the local skyline. There used to be baile funk parties here almost 24/7, but their audience is all but cleared out of this section of town now.

And speaking of unrecognizable, you're in your other identity. The rebellious ersatz-heiress to the company fortune that enjoys the high life, arriving at beachside parties in amphibious submarines and rooftop club parties in helicopters because she can. The bling-obsessed royalblood that can make or break clubs depending on how well they treat you, and can handle drinks better than most rockstars.

But today is a little community outreach. You're imprisoned in this "clammy-bass" business casuals in sweltering weather in the midst of this "clamped-bass" favela, all for a picnic, of sorts.

Just about everybody who's everybody in the tough-guns side of Rio de Janeiro politics is here. Like the candidate for state senator promoting Nova Beforra as an example of how to root out crime in this entire city. If rooting out crime his way involves hiring a tyrian-blooded supermerc to lay three-holed waste to anyone he doesn't like, of course, that's perfectly fine with you.

There are also his friends riding his coat tails, like the boisterous legislator/talk show host that almost violently eggs him on during his daily 30 minutes on network television. And of course, the top honchos of the militia you're now swimming with.

All in all you've probably never seen a larger assortment of criminals (literally and figuratively) than even the comic books, but you're not going to judge when kicking people's asses for bling is your business.

Your "night" business anyway. Not that your day business isn't much different.

You lean back in your seat and pull out one of those electric hand-fans. You managed to nick one with gold trim and seashell-shaped blades, because why the shell not.

The only person missing from this association of high rollers is that super-cop captain. The so-called incorruptible.

"Where's that glubbin' super-cop?" you lean over to ask the oliveblood police lieutenant seated to your right. "Thought he was one of you guys."

"Going through all the paperwork or having fun in his private dungeon," he responds. "Captain Morrah, he's as straightlaced as a blueblood gets, and thinks he's better than the rest of us on the street. But as long as he stays off our asses he makes life easier for us and these citizens."

"More opportunity for us to shellp, ain't it," you concur.

It turned out the slumdwellers weren't just hungry for drugs. They wanted internet, basic loans, all kinds of services that non-favela folk got but didn't extend to the normal folk down here because it was "too risky." The militia caught on as soon as the cartels left, and gave them all that...as long as the people paid them, the politicians got their votes, and you got paid to give them your endorsement.

Oh right, the militia. Cops and ex-cops, soldiers and ex-soldiers, a decent, law-abiding sort that very recently concluded that the best way to prevent the gangs from coming back was to become the only gang in town. That they claim to actually be on the side of law and order earns them points with everyone but those activists that the gangs keep around to let their members out of prison when the dirty cops require more than their usual cut.

And that was your way in. Nova Beforra is now fertile recruiting grounds for labor at Fabricas Peixes, a proud subsidiary of CrockerCorp-GM and the world's second largest maritime construction and technology firm behind the Atlanteans of Long Beach, California. And that not only makes you both a source of votes and money for the candidate, sitting at the head of the table.

It gains you an entire favela full of legitimate prawns for your business empire.

"I want to propose a toast to all of us here, as thanks for all your support." The militia chief raises his glass. "And to the one person that isn't here."

You smirk. You know he's probably going to refer to that super-cop and not-

"... _La Bicuda_."

A sharp, toothy grin crosses your face.

"For proving that there is only one side that will truly win in this fight, the side of justice. To our goddess of protection, our _ladra da vida_."

You stand up and happily raise a glass of this weak-bass shit they call beer, grinning like a great white aquatic chompbeast. The champagne will be after they win their campaign.

A thief of life among other thieves. Fitting.

To be quite honest, you don't care much for the family business. You'd rather leave the heiress infighting to your so-called "spawn sibling" and her human counterpart, caring and homely as they respectively act. And you still feel like grilled pollock filet in this suit. But if it means more bling, more connections and - if these militia guys are serious - cooler weapons, hey, more power to you.

And once they've exhausted themselves, you can show the board what you've built in their absence. Lead this army right up to their door and take over like the imperial heritage your blood implies.

You are Meenah Peixes, and with one favela now subjugated (sub _jugga_ lated sounds like it has a better ring to it) your quest for power has only begun.

* * *

 

**Bangu Federal Penitentiary**

You are Captain Kaviro Morrah and you're processing more than just paperwork.

You're sitting across a table in an interrogation room across one of Rio de Janeiro's most well-known vigilantes with only a flickering overhead bulb and the fading sunlight filtering through a tiny barred allowing you to see him at all.

"I had my suspicions, Gecko," you begin. "So I did a little digging myself."

The limeblood doesn't respond. He doesn't even look at you. It's not the first time someone's given you that utter and complete lack of attention after being plastic-bagged for information. You've gotten it from the hardest of the hardened drug gang leaders and their equivalent rivals all the way down to their lowliest runners and the trendy midblood youth they make into observers in exchange for their fix.

The kinds of crazies who, if you had your way, wouldn't even be separated on different sides of this hellhole.

This guy? He's probably up there with the craziest.

You put two folder files on the table, open them up, and continue.

"Ptycho Kateus." you say incriminatingly as you read from the folder on your left, a fairly thin, sad little thing. But he immediately stares at you surprised, the words getting his attention.

_Bingo._

"You wriggled out of the Amazonas Norte brooding pit and squirmed into Rio with your shellbeast lusus. Officially you're a resident of whatever favela you can scrape up a living in, but you are _un_ officially a vigilante," your eyes drift to the contents of the other folder, "and one of this city's _great guardians._ "

You emphasize the deadpan sarcasm of the last two words. The contents of the second folder are thick enough to fill a binder.

Gecko has become the bane of every single gang that has their goons locked up in this hellhole, with the rotten elements that infest the PMERJ and PCERJ, and in the last few raids he even had the audacity to deliberately take on BOPE. Even the gangs know that taking on the Skulls, even non(!)-lethally is a surefire signature on their own death warrant, written in the color of their blood and lit up above the entire state.

You could almost forgive his appearance. Neon-green-tipped dreads draped around his wiry body like tentacles, that crop-top that could probably be mistaken for a professional triathlete's bikini, horns more like a chameleon's eye ridges, you'd swear he'd be some kind of anime shapeshifter under those bandages.

And that black bandanna. You let him keep it on even when he was recovering in the ward. Word travels fast in Rio, almost as fast as in Sampa, and bullets are almost always sure to follow especially when it comes to anybody that wears a mask for activity outside the boundaries of law.

Still, it's nice to be able to process someone other than a cartel thug.

"You can read most the favelas in this city like the palm of your hand. The ABIN's database on you knows you can climb walls and regenerate in sunlight. And you're as flexible as a gymnast with your fighting style."

All of it's topped off by the fact that he's always somehow managed to leave his gang targets giftwrapped and _alive_ for the less-corrupt elements of law enforcement rather than leaving their body parts strewn all over the Copacabana.

"You turned to vigilantism about four years ago after you and your moirail were caught stealing to survive from a local gang." You eye what appear to be old burn scars on his arms, mostly concealed by some rather decent tribal tattoo work (or are those feral stripes?), before returning to the thin folder. "And you somehow mostly escaped your punishment."

Whenever he had to take on BOPE, well, he left them unconscious in alleyways for _you_ to find before the gangs could. You know how intensely these men are trained, because you're in charge of their boot camp. You know what kind of martial arts and specibi training they are able to use, not counting their firearms, and even somehow Gecko finds a way to overwhelm them.

But even his lucky streak couldn't last forever. The Indians have this thing called karma and well, finding Gecko giftwrapped next to Nova Beforra's dying Godfather is you finally cashing in on some of it.

"Your moirail didn't, and the cops predictably didn't do shit," you continue, as you conclude your story at Gecko's folder. "Took the fight to the gangs, to us, to the supervillains...and it took one to finally bring you to us."

It's just a shame that the one to cash him out was the other "supercriminal" you hoped to catch that afternoon. La Bicuda is as royal as royal gets in the world of criminal empire, rumored to be that rarest tyrian of the seadweller trolls, and she loves every minute that she can stay above you and your pack.

"I'm somewhat disappointed you weren't able to put up much of a fight this time, even more so that _she's_ still out there."

You could probably call his penchant mercy a weakness. A lot of these gang members he takes on are usually chucked back out by the corrupt cops in their respective precincts if the politicians aren't swayed by activists to pardon them for goodwill and votes.

Thanks ironically to those same politicians giving you a boost in funding for their law-and-order bent this season, you're also able to leave these goons unemployed because their bosses and lieutenants can't give them jobs if they're not alive. You did that so well that the governor is planning to appoint you to head the city's Department of Public Safety if he wins, where you can finally turn BOPE into the fighting force this city deserves.

Predictably, Gecko (among others) hates your so-called black-clad, ironfisted, trigger-happy "fascistic" methods as much as the other favela residents who are caught between the crossfire and those activists who would throw themselves into that pit to paint you the wrong way. That's honestly to be expected from people who live swaddled middle-class existences thinking that you're creating a prison state.

For you, these methods are a cure for a disease some people are happy to perpetuate. They don't know what it's like.

"You definitely have shameglobes big as coconuts for squirming out of Amazonas Norte, let alone escaping a necklacing," you continue, "But all these direct attacks on my men? It's a miracle you weren't brought straight to the morgue."

But you quietly admit had a lapse in judgment in administering this cure. You thought that cleaning out these gangs would starve the dirty cops out of business. Turned out that you're not the only one that thought adversity bred innovation. The ex-cops realized they could profit off extorting the poor in exchange for giving them what the local politicians will take credit for, and became a full-fledged gang of their own. The "militia," as they're called.

The politicians call them "ordinary folks tired of inaction, taking action to do what's right by their own citizens." And the politicians control the statistics that you act on.

If the official statistics say the neighborhood's not broken, why would they let you deploy your men to fix it?

Which brings the two of you here. At least the both of you could probably agree that there's a reason you do what you do, and although none of you will claim perfection, neither of you do it for your "fans" in high places.

"You are a very dangerous vigilante, Gecko," you sigh as if you're about to get to the part of your interrogation where you tell the poor  _filho da puta_  what they're going to jail for.

It's a good thing there aren't any cameras here. Someone in the monitoring room might grow a conscience at what you do with your suspects in here.

"Which is why I'm regretting giving you the chance to go free."

"You what?!" are the first things out of that vigilante's masked mouth, and he's not thrilled at the possibility.

"There's this lefty that's been up my ass for a while, wants a little clemency for the holiday season," you continue to explain, giving a deep blue stare into his eyes, which seem to flicker neon-green under the light. "Turns out he's a big fan of yours too. I think I'm going to let him have his way."

"Fffuck offf. I'm not going to become your goon," Gecko immediately retorts, having jumped to conclusions predictably quickly. He tries to raise a gesture with one hand, though that's pretty hard to do when he's handcuffed to the chair.

"All I see is a criminal I'm forced to release back into the wild," you huff. "And it'll be best for you."

"I'm not going to help you if it'sss going to fffucking help _you,"_ he spits with his serpentine accent, his (metaphorical) venom almost leaking through his bandana.

"There's the irony," you continue, standing up to continue glowering at him, "You think that we put the goons in here, but the fact is that _you_ put them in here. We put them in bodybags."

"And you'd love nothing more than to fffeed me to them," he deduces derisively, looking away. "Come on, I'm not afffraid."

"I'd ask if you were," which you deduce he probably is. He might have 'powers,' he might have squirmed out of Amazonas, but he's still mortal. "But I'll save that until I finish my offer. And you should be thankful that either one will inflict serious pain on my thinkpan."

"Not like I've got nothing elssse to do," he groans, looking at the foor.

"First option is, you get out. We return to the way things were, where you make more trouble for us, for the gangs, the militias, and especially La Bicuda. You know deep down you want one more shot at her as much as we do," you begin, counting on one finger.

"Huh," he's dismissive of the first before you've presented the other option, "And the sssecond?"

"Easy. You get placed in solitary, but I can't guarantee what'll happen in the 1 hour out of the day they let you mingle with the population, let alone what they'll charge you with," you say as you sit down, much more dismissively than he was of the first option, "Meanwhile, La Bicuda becomes the empress and enslaves the favelas for those politicians and that corporation spreading its tentacles around."

"Sssounds like I'm fffucked either way, isssn't it," he leans back in his chair, tossing his head back like he's resigned to his fate.

"Maybe, but there is one thing I can promise you, and you don't have to trust it," you shrug, closing the files and pushing both of them to opposite corners of the table. "You take the way out, then the link between Ptycho Kateus the _favelado_  and Gecko the vigilante will return to the depths of the file cabinets I found them."

He doesn't respond. And you are hopeful about the silence, because that's the silence of someone thinking it over. You gather both files and stand up, preparing to leave the room.

"Do you really think your moirail would want you to die in here with the bastards that killed him?" you ask, not looking back this time as you open the door. "I'll give you an hour to think about it."

You know it will only take him a few seconds before he gives you the reply you want, because it's also the reply he really wants.

**== > FILE END**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the expanded version of a SCU file I wrote on Tumblr some time back detailing Gecko's arrest at the hands of La Bicuda. Gecko's a fantroll OC I converted from a previous human. His appearance here would be greatly inspired by the anime character whose name translates to a spelling of his troll surname.
> 
> I don't have to add that Kaviro Morrah is obviously Troll Captain Nascimento though.
> 
> More stories coming when I feel like it.
> 
> -Ed.


	2. Democratic Republic of Congo

**== > FILE OPEN**

**Democratic Republic of Congo**

15,000 feet above one of the few mostly unspoiled stretches of nature left on the planet, a giant Ilyushin transport jet circled the cradle of civilization like a toy that could hypnotize a giant baby.

The old freight jet had strayed off the typical flight path taken by military, civilian, and "in-between" aircraft, detouring up over a part of the sub-Saharan where society had completely broken down and the sapient creatures differentiated themselves from the other excrement-flingers by their use of firearms instead of actual excrement.

This, perhaps, also allowed nature and all its rarer fauna and ex-lusii to try reclaiming it, putting the sapients at war with the animals as well as themselves.

All things considered, the burly yet boyish gentleman in combat boots and booty shorts surveying the land from the window of the Antonov transport as he prepared his gold-plated firearms completed the stereotype of a neo-imperialist European safariman about to plunge into a savage, untamed land to bring home creatures for his wall, with a dash of high-budget Hollywood "updating" for flavor.

Or the stereotype of a low-grade Eastern European gay porn.

Either way it was going to be a rush for him, now that he was seeing exactly what he wanted to see on the video communicator he wore on his wrist.

"Good boy, Seraph," he chortled to himself in a thick Australian accent, spotting the contours and pack formation characteristic to a small pride of endangered spotted meowbeasts several miles out. He went to the nearest intercom and buzzed the cockpit.

"Alyosha, we've spotted the roddy bastards. Drop the ol' tail gate for us, would you?"

"Copy that Mr. English," was the intercom a younger voice with a thick Russian accent. Alyosha was a good kid. Probably slightly older than him and getting his first taste of life on the circuit. But most importantly, he didn't ask questions. "Good luck and good hunting."

Whatever he might have said next was drowned out by the klaxons and machinery that kept the inside of the plane shielded from the unforgiving atmosphere outside.

"...and Godspeed," Jake English said to himself as he pulled a gas mask off a nearby rack and strapped it on. The mask was emblazoned with a green skull motif - but it was more than just a cool design. It also packed a rebreather for an underwater escape or high-altitude climb. And it not only shielded his eyes from irritants and the red flashes of the alarms - it also helped them adjust to the daylight as sunlight cascaded into the Antonov's cargo hold.

He moved carefully if not confidently toward the Antonov's only other occupant, an archaic but steadfastly reliable Land Rover Defender Perentie with several bullet dents near the driver's side door handle. He ran through his usual checklist as he peeked around inside: rations, weapons, ammunition (and plenty of!), and of course - the car's parachute, mounted through a special rack whose legs ran all the way down the vehicle. The switch that deployed the ripchord would be the easiest object to reach in a vehicle tuned to handle conditions that could only be described as worse than the one he was about to descend into.

The cherry on the cake was an obscenely large, bright orange lock with a heart symbol on the driver side door, jarred around the handle in a way that destroying it was the only way to access the vehicle.

The only condition the Land Rover could certainly not handle was a sudden crash landing from 20,000 feet up - a landing that Jake English apparently had every intention of sending it to as he reached into the Land Rover and set it to Neutral before unfastening the buckles. Not that it could complain.

"Have a merry ol' time out in the blue yonder, mate!" he cheered as he lifted a boot-clad foot and pushed the Land Rover backward - and off the plane.

"TALLY HOOOOOOOOO~" Only he could hear his own battlecry echoing in his gas mask as he got into a running start, leaping off the open cargo doors and into the endless blue. The sound of the alarms quickly faded to silence, drowned out by the rush of wind.

"Wait, what about his parachute?!" Alyosha shouted.

"He keeps it in the car," the pilot replied knowingly.

"Is he going to-"

"This is your first flight with us, Alyosha," the senior pilot replied. "Trust me, he finds a way, every time. Like he _hopes_ for it."

The giant transport plane quickly shrunk away and disappeared as Jake narrowed his stance to dive even faster. The Land Rover would only be falling slightly slower, so time was of the essence.

He reached for the gun holsters strapped around his thighs, drew and - found only one gun in his hands instead of two. His eyes widened in his gas mask, as he suddenly felt like he only had one working arm, let alone firearm.

"Poppycock-" It wasn't as if he could buy another one of those, but he was never one to take on an adventure half-cocked. As it were.

Fortunately, he had barely begun to aim his single Beretta toward the lock when he noticed a large, white, winged serpentine creature suddenly flying in formation next to him.

"Seraph, you sly dog! Always dapper by your master, eh mate?"

The giant winged serpent gave a muffled shriek of approval, as it could not open a mouth that pinched a gold-plated Beretta 92 in its maw.

Seraph was one of that most legendary of terrestrial creatures - not quite animal, not quite lusus, but a gosh diggity darn honest to goodness "angel." Nobody quite knew what they descended from, and they were only called angels by trolls due to their semblance in troll mythology, so the name stuck with humans as well. That made them all the more prized for not resembling the traditional endangered game selection at all - especially to Jake English.

He still remembered the day first saw the creature.

It was the day after charges were dropped for his grandmother's killer, and the sight of it defined his purpose in life.

Whatever effort he hadn't put into taking over that murderer's poaching empire and adding gun-running and tomb-raiding to the mix, he spent tracking it.

Wrangling Seraph above the mysterious Rice Henges in the Philippines was one of the few wildlife encounters Jake could honestly call "adventure worthy" in itself. Perhaps recognizing its superior in combat, the angel became one of his trusted traveling companions, a spotter for whatever trouble might be coming his way. And Jake did care for it in reciprocation, letting it have its way with his enemies sometimes at leisure.

There were some things that were just too rare AND valuable to simply kill, stuff and sell to the highest bidder. And he couldn't remember the last species he didn't simply kill, stuff and sell it to the highest bidder.

"All right, it's high time to recommence this pursuit," he shouted to Seraph, taking the Beretta from its maw and giving it a friendly airborne pat on its head next to the camera that helped him spot the spotted meowbeasts he intended to hunt down.

The angel gave a happy shriek as it backed off from Jake, circling him as he got within firing range of the tumbling Land Rover. The way it was barrel-rolling in mid-air, any opportunity to hit the golden lock was sporadic at best, and that wasn't counting all the other factors that would affect the bullets' path.

That didn't stop him from hoping, though.

"Steady as she goes..." he muttered, pouring all his concentration down the gunsights.

It was the kind of burning concentration that almost made his body look like it was steaming.

"...now!"

With a loud 'clack' barely audible above the wind, a pair of shells exploded out of their respective Berettas and impacted the lock dead center, shattering the mechanism from the inside and releasing it from the handle in an insignificantly small gold-colored flash that whizzed past the corner of Jake's mask-restricted vision.

Once the lock was securely out of the way, he holstered and secured his pistols before seeming to float down toward the Land Rover.

The door swung open as he operated the handle, using his burly arms to pull himself onto the driver's seat.

For the next minute or so after the parachute deployed, it seemed the world went quiet enough for him to enjoy the seemingly endless blue stretching out in every direction except down.

The Perentie landed with a spine-jarring whomp, all four of its wheels digging into a clearing just off a gravel path. The suspension held up admirably as it always did, the parachute draping across the vehicle.

Jake took that opportunity to get out and stuff the parachute into the trunk, keeping one hand on a holster just in case someone was immediately alerted to his arrival. Of course, being attacked upon arrival by sentient or non-sentient beings was something he expected. Unlike, say, the engine refusing to start when he got back into the vehicle.

"Oh my stars and fuckin' garters..." he groaned to himself, as the vehicle suddenly stalled. The Perentie wasn't usually THIS banged up, even if this was far from the first time he dropped into hostile environments with it.

He got out of the Perentie again and checked the engine block. Something had indeed come loose in the impact, but it wasn't anything he couldn't reach in and stick back together. That was what made these old vehicles so dependable, none of those overly complex electric thingamabobs that required servicing at some fancy depot. In fact, he decided to start the vehicle while he was outside through a little manual choking.

The initial sputtering quickly snowballed into a roar as the Perentie's engine ascended into the realm of the living. "Yes!" he clenched both fists in triumph that turned out to be extremely short-lived.

"Don't move, Page," came a very threatening growl from behind him, accompanied by the cocking of an AK-47.

"Bugger," he muttered to himself, tapping his wristband monitor before turning to face them with his hands in the air.

He became legitimately worried for the first time in years when he saw exactly who he was facing.

At least 10 humans and trolls had surrounded him and the van, some in ragged shirts, others in knockoff football jerseys, but all possessing some very threatening automatic weaponry and specibi. Whoever this gang was, they clearly weren't interested in the weapon design techniques that made him the infamous "Page."

Poaching and treasure hunting in booty shorts weren't his only hobbies.

"...well shoot," he replied, opening his fists. "All right, you got me."

He looked up into the endless blue. He knew what he was expecting to see.

Nobody lasted in an business like his unless they had an escape plan. Jake English's plan was to use the beacon he had just activated on his wrist to alert Seraph to his location and help him beat a hasty absconding by swooping him out of there. It worked every time, otherwise he would have ended up here.

Only after a few seconds, it seemed like Seraph wasn't coming.

Maybe it was because he landed in particularly thick forest. Seraph had great eyesight but not even an angel could see through things. Or because maybe his communicator had finally had enough of all the abuse it had been subjected to while attached to his person.

"Your guardian angel isn't coming for you," the lead gunman threatened, keeping his AK-74 aimed squarely at his center of mass. "You're coming with us now."

_Fuck me._

Jake tried not to look afraid outwardly. It wasn't the first time an ambush had led to his capture, but this was increasingly looking like the first time that it had led to his capture and he _didn't_ have an escape plan handy.

He found himself hoping he could put some kind of plan together. Perhaps draw out his Berettas, take out the gunmen on one side and use the Perentie for cover against the other while he tried to alert Seraph again. Or perhaps go shell-beast in the Perentie unless one of them had a grenade on them. Or maybe-

"He's lighting up!" one of them shouted.

Another of the ambush team responded by introducing the butt of his tonfakind to the back of Jake's head, knocking him out cold and stopping the glowing steam that had begun to wisp from his body. Not looking afraid in the face of a violent death was easy when his face was covered by his gas mask, but nigh impossible when his latent superpower had begun to kick in.

"Don't fire!" the lead gunman said, putting one arm in front of another henchman who tried to seize the opportunity to finish off the fallen Page. "Interpol wanted him alive."

"What about the angel?" one of the troll goons asked hurriedly.

"The jammer will wear off soon. We have to get him back to the hideout quickly."

With a few quick gestures, a trio of the henchmen went over to Jake's fallen body and picked him up.

Barely 20 seconds later, the only evidence of Jake English had been there was an abandoned Land Rover with its engine idling away.

**== > FILE PART 1 END**

**== > FILE PART 2 QUEUED**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, it's not much, but I do hope to get into more about Jake's little origin story later on... - Ed.


	3. Belvedere, CA / Seattle, WA

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I was actually writing this before the game in question, if anybody asks, and I'm still kinda salty about it. Onto the chronicle!

**== > FILE OPEN**

 

 

**Seattle, WA / Belvedere, CA**

**SkaiaNet Field**  
**Seattle, WA**

Night had already set on this cold January evening, but absolutely nobody was going to sleep anywhere on the West Coast. Especially among the 65,000 people that filled SkaiaNet Field cheering for their favorite team. Especially not the black-haired, blue-eyed teenager in the bright-blue hoodie standing next to his father, who might have been the only individual in the entire stadium not in either team's color - or in Seattle's case, not in the correct shade of blue.

Today was special. Today was the game of games. The Conference Championship that would decide who went to the Super Bowl and who would watch them from their couches at home. The Seattle Seahawks taking on their perennial conference rivals from San Francisco looking for their first victory up here in years.

It was a classic, all-American sports event for a father and his son. And unfortunately for John Egbert, it wasn't exactly going very well.

"#93, LaShawn Nelson, makes the sack for a loss of 1. It's now 4th and 12 from the 10, with Leon Richards making the punt."

This was John Egbert's first time at a major sporting event, and he had braved the stadium's infamous Seahawks noise barrages well from his nosebleed seats. Thanks mostly to his dad's specially-ordered earplugs keeping the noise at tolerable levels as well as a diffusing wind shield orbiting his ears, but the noise wasn't the problem.

It wasn't very often when the stadium played that low humming effect that signified that rare instance when the home team was on the ropes. Especially not to a visiting team that had suddenly become revitalized around the one individual they had constantly tried to keep from making a field goal attempt.

He clenched his fists as the white-and-red-uniformed offense took the field. Seattle was down by 2 and there was still just enough time on the clock for a drive up to field goal range.

This day couldn't have possibly gotten any stressful.

* * *

 

 **SFPD SuperCrime Unit - Tiburon Station**  
**Belvedere, CA**

The day couldn't have possibly gotten any busier. At least not for her.

The main deployment station of the SuperCrime Unit was normally bustling with activity from the Monitoring Division keeping tack of supercriminal activity across the Bay Area. The Deployment Teams on standby, ready to keep superpowered disaster from wreaking havoc on the Cities by the Bay.

But today was special. Today was the game of games. The Conference Championship that would decide who went to the Super Bowl and who went home.

"We're back to this absolute thriller of a game here in SkaiaNet Field here in Seattle. The 49ers who have typically been on the wrong end of several consecutive blowouts here have come back with a vengeance, taking this game right up to the last few yards."

And Detective Callie Ohpeee was processing the paperwork for a recent stakeout at her desk. Perhaps being about the only member of the SCU's monitoring team up there was better for her concentration. Attentive as she was, the limeblooded troll in the odd green tailcoat kept her smartphone on sports radio just so she wouldn't get distracted with the sights as much as the sounds. Her neon-green eyes were clearly more focused on following the cursor as it darted from field to field on each electronic form.

That didn't mean she wasn't looking forward to watching when she was done. Especially when there was someone she would otherwise have been dying to see.

_"But the one weapon the 49ers have yet to bring out tonight, the one weapon that Seattle's vaunted defense has so far managed to prevent from appearing is none other than Cal Bourne, the Golden Leg. Also called the Green Terror by those that have had to deal with him, Bourne has not missed a single field goal...since high school."_

_"We've seen Bourne, of course, also dealing kicks past the 5 with plenty of hangtime for the special teams to catch up. Nobody on the receiving end of a Cal Bourne kick has been able to make it past the 10 all season, including fair catches. He kicked 5 for 5 in San Francisco's home victory and made his only field goal attempt earlier in Seattle."_

The office phone on her desk rang almost on queue. She eyed the caller ID and picked it up out of reflex once she saw the words "REC ROOM".

"This is Callie," she answered, her tone as routine just as any other call.

"Hey Callie!" came the burly voice of a sergeant in the SCU's Deployment Unit, causing her to recoil from the excitement. "The game's almost done and we've just about got it!"

"I'll come down when my brother's on," she sighed, almost as if she didn't want to see him, and hung up.

_"Whitley hands it off to Grimm he runs it, finding an opening right through the middle and just making the first down in bounds at the 15 with Johnson making the tackle. This will keep the clock running down as this run puts them well within field goal range."_

_"And you know what that means, Derek."_

_"That's right, that big red #1 is now walking onto the field with the field goal unit, the Golden Leg is about to decide this game and the noise box has gone silent."_

Callie's neon-green eyes suddenly widened, her fingers freezing in the midst of filling out the information on some Felt Syndicate no-name. Instead, they went right for the phone right as it rang.

"Callie! Your brother's on-" came the voice of another member of the Monitoring unit.

"I'm on it!" she replied before she could finish, slamming the phone down.

Before even she knew it she had stashed the paperwork and begun the long sprint toward the station's rec room.

This was the moment Callie Ohpeee had been waiting for.

* * *

This was the moment John Egbert had dreaded.

He'd heard the legends of the notorious Big Red One, Cal Bourne. Born on the same day as the Angel Island disaster that devastated San Francisco, left horrifically disfigured and resentful to match. Football became his outlet, for his physicality and his temper. Relegated to kicker after being a little _too_ physical at several positions, he became the Green Terror that had never missed a single kick since he was first assigned that position in high school. The Green Terror with the kind of mouth that made even their cornerbacks' trash talking seem family-friendly.

Now he was about to send a majority of the field's 65,000 fans home disappointed and consumed with unfathomable despair. A 31-yarder was as easy for Cal as it was for John's dad to shave - and metaphorically cake for someone who had broken the NFL record twice in one season, _and_ kicked it through the needle's eye against defenses doing all they could to block it, and there was nothing that could be done.

Or was there?

 _No,_ he thought at first,  _it's cheating._

He watched as Bourne aligned his green fingers in the shape of an artist's square as if he was trying to shrink the seats past the goalposts into his pocket. Or getting a good view of the kick he was clearly certain would silence the entire Pacific Northwest.

He looked to his left, where a fifty-something woman decked out in team gear was trembling with her hands to her mouth. In front of him, a dating couple were clinging together as if the football would land right at their feet like a cursed artifact after it went through the goalposts, even though they were sitting around the 20-yard line.

At that moment, right the whistle blew, John Egbert realized he had a city to save.

The snapper nailed it perfectly. The holder planted it with pinpoint precision for the Green Terror's "Golden Leg" to strike it. The ball sailed right over the heads of the Seahawks' defenders and directly toward such an exact middle point between the goal posts that lasers would have been needed to see if it was really off center.

John held his breath.

His eyes suddenly glinted a blue glow.

Two seconds later the silence that pervaded through SkaiaNet Field was deafening.

* * *

Two seconds later the surprise pervading through Tiburon Station was deafening.

The ball was dead on, sailing directly toward the exact middle point between the goal posts that lasers would have been needed to check if had really gone through off center.

Then it suddenly hooked left and banked away from the goalposts like someone had swatted it away in the nick of time.

"...is the TV broken man? What the hell?!" came the harried reaction of one Monitoring unit member.

"Shit's rigged! No way someone didn't just pull a net over it," was another from another Monitoring agent.

Callie was running for her life down the otherwise sterile hallways to the rec room. First she heard her brother was on, and then the cries of shock and anger from the crowd watching caused her to pick up her pace as if she was responding to the Angel Island Disaster herself.

She hoped she didn't arrive too late.

Something wasn't right, and everybody knew it.

* * *

Something wasn't right, and everybody knew it.

Especially John Egbert. And his dad.

While everybody's eyes were focused on the men in black and white stripes deliberating and reviewing footage on the field, John was more worried about the one pair of eyes on him.

He could tell his father knew exactly what happened, his jaw dropping with the rest of the crowd. If things turned out the way John hoped it did at the very moment it happened, it would be a happy ending for everybody. Except him.

After what felt like the longest minute in sports history, one of the referees broke from the crowd and switched on his mic.

"The ruling on the field is, there was no interference by the players, the field goal is no good-"

The crowd's reaction was deafening.

* * *

_"And it's no good! It's no good! The referees are letting it stand, wide left from 31 yards-"_

The entire department's reaction was deafening. The Deployment and Monitoring Team agents gathered to watch the game had been consumed by an unfathomable cacophony of shock, depression and anger. Cans and other debris and even some smaller specibi were being thrown at the television set like it was a game watched in prison.

"What the hell was that?!"

"Jegus fucking Christ. You had one job, Cal. _One fucking job!_ "

"Refball. There's gotta be a rule against delirious biznasty like that."

"Refs pulled an invisible net over it, that's what I think!"

"Should cut off that fucker's leg, that's what- Callie!?"

There was always something about her immediate presence in Tiburon Station or any SFPD or SCU installation that seemed to cause everyone in the room to go calm. Whatever it was, it was what helped her calm down and rationalize with even the most angry and/or suicidal individuals. It was what kept her partners thinking reasonably straight when paired up with her, it was what made her the SFPD's most prized negotiator before she was "recommended" to the SCU. It was what kept the room from fully rioting.

This time, however, it was for the wrong reason.

She had finally made her way to the rec room just in time to see her brother mess up on the grandest stage of all. And as she leaned and then slumped against the doorway, covering her face from the unfathomable despair that had consumed her.

"Come on, it's gonna be okay," said the same Deployment Team member who had just threatened to cut off her brother's leg. He had run over to her to try to embrace her, only to be batted away by her arm. He recoiled immediately, like he'd just been hit with an actual batkind.

"Get away from me!" she shouted, getting up and trudging to the nearest washroom, covering her face with her other arm. Nobody followed her.

She stared into the mirror, at the patch of green hide that had been exposed by her tears eroding her makeup. Her sobs made it a bit hard to breathe through her nose - which was already mostly "filled" with the prosthetic she used to keep the appearance of a troll.

But she didn't need to disguise the green spirals around her cheek, which seemed to wisp a faint glow of red.

As she stared into her reflection and the red wisping off her cheek, she thought that he'd slowly managed to tame that raging temper he had as long as he remembered. That unfathomable lust for power and "boatloads of bitches," quoting him. And his hatred. For everybody and everyone for whatever reason, and especially her for whatever reason. Until that moment she believed that one day he could take out his hatred through a more constructive outlet instead of crime.

And it served him well, since by the time a struggling major league football team decided to give him a go by drafting him last in the draft out of Dublin Tech, he'd just imagine his sister's head every time he kicked the ball smack dab through the middle of the uprights. Now he was being paid entire exponents above her standard salary to do that, the city and all the fans in the stadiums wherever he went almost bowing at his feet or resenting his temper, and he took it to stride.

He was living the life he'd wanted, and she was happy that he was finally living that life without breaking more than the occasional media regulation.

But she could tell from the way he _wasn't_ reacting to what had just happened, what he'd just cost his team, what he'd just cost her.

_"...and the Cinderella run that defined their first winning season in 20 years comes to a freakish end, Cal Bourne frozen in shock and awe as the team looks back on what almost was..."_

This was the day she lost him for good.

* * *

This was the day John learned his powers were only to be used for good.

Like many superpowered individuals, he'd stumbled upon his powers at a young age. And his father, somehow knowing as he always was, helped him train to use them well. At the time though, he still wasn't quite ready to use them in public - and tonight he'd learned exactly why.

What he had done to trigger a world-record-breaking-loud cheer from most of the 65,000 spectators at SkaiaNet Field, however, wasn't considered that by his father. His powers had manifested in a way that - while perhaps benefiting the city's sports fans and bringing it the sporting joy it had lacked for decades - was also for his own selfish desires.

It was why his dad dragged him out by the wrist and the two blended in with the sullen 49ers fans that trickled out of the stadium as the confetti fell, getting in the late-model white Oldsmobile Aurora that had brought them there from Maple Valley for that long, quiet ride home to think about what he did.

John looked back at the stadium as it slid behind the horizon from I-5, his eyes twinkling with the flickering fireworks that erupted from the celebrations.

It would be years before John Egbert was seen anywhere near SkaiaNet Field.

When he did finally return, it would be as the Heir.

It would be at night, not long after the lights went out on a college game. Standing in the middle of the field, looking up at the goal posts in the starlit dark, remembering all the people he'd done right by since he took up the mantle. The crowds of people from all conceivable walk of life who gave it their all to cheer for the home team, the extra "12th Man" to the 11 on the field, their banner next to the four Super Bowl banners raised since.

For the fifty-something woman decked out in Seahawks gear, the clinging couple, the crowds who, perhaps, would throw the same parade for him that they did for the best team in the whole damn country if and when he could somehow foil a great crime spree.

But as he knelt by the 31-yard-line, silently mouthing thanks to his dad, his city, and perhaps even the elementals, he also hoped for forgiveness for the one man that he'd wronged.

Somewhere in the Bay Area, that man's sister was hoping for the same thing.

* * *

_The Seahawks would go on to lose against the Pittsburgh Psionics for the second time in Super Bowl history. Nevertheless, the "Breath of God" provided the team the inspiration to become perennial playoff contenders for the next decade, breaking the associated Super Bowl Curse the next year in the first of a four championship streak. The incident was later attributed to The Heir as one of his first acts of heroism._

_Cal Bourne was last seen getting into a rental car at Norman Mineta Airport in San Jose shortly after disembarking from the official 49ers team plane. An exhaustive statewide search was conducted, resulting in the rental car being found abandoned in Death Valley. The remains of what appeared to be Bourne's right leg was recovered from the driver's seat, as well as traces of a trail of blood leading from the vehicle. The rest of the body was never found, and he is presumed dead._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This is the kind of plotline I've been kicking around (no pun intended) in my head, but have never really gotten to use. Mainly because if you've watched Ace Ventura you'd know exactly how the resulting plot could be regarded as triggering.
> 
> I eventually decided to make Callie and Caliborn separate entities because of this but also because it was easier to manage. I will say right now that they're still both cherubs, but a headcanon explanation for why they're even separate in this AUverse will be done "when it's done."


	4. San Francisco, CA

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: It's 2 AM and I finally finished something that's been lingering in draft limbo for the last two weeks. Enjoy!
> 
> Warning: Contains borderline-implicit makeouts.

**== > FILE OPEN**

**SFPD Presidio Precinct Station**  
**9:10 p.m.**

It's cold, nothing is beautiful and everything hurts.

Well, your gut still hurts from your little run-in with that cross-dressing seadweller on Pier 43. The rest of your body is generally fine but winded.

You could especially use some energy drinks right about now. Or a cup'a joe. Black. Like the night sky or whatever creepy metaphor Die likes to use. But to warm you up instead rather than freeze yourself into some horrorterror's vortex.

As you step out into the cool Bay Area night you especially wish you could seriously take something for whatever part of your body that's still aching. Maybe a Four Loko so you can chill out and still get energized. As it were.

This wasn't nearly the first time you've been thrown in the pen. Definitely not the first time you've been thrown in the pen after you..."changed," and most certainly not the first time you've had to share it with a Midnight Crew goon or two. You can also safely say this isn't the first time the pigs were threatening to handing you to the SuperCrime Unit for...whatever it is they do to captured super-"criminals."

You got your call to your "lawyer," who then proceeded to wrangle your release almost as soon as you hung up. Considering your special powers, that took the same long green minute it took waiting.

You're standing on the steps of the precinct, hoping to fuck that the pale blue late-model sedan that's pulling up is a ride out with heating.

You then pull the finger at the officer who sees you out before getting in the car.

"You okay?" the driver begins, and you turn to face him with frustration.

It's Doze. You're both satisfied and disappointed that he came to pick you up from the hokey. You'd recognize his green, slightly slumped meager figure with a bit of pudge anywhere. Almost as much as that vibrantly-blue top hat he seems to enjoy wearing. You're roommates, and you don't mind, but he's one of the few people you'd want at the wheel when you're in the passenger seat.

"Course I'm not fucking okay, they slapped _this_ on me," you reply snidely.

"...oh my." He seems a bit flushed, and you can only tell by the way he puts one hand up to his mouth.

You point to the tracker they wrapped around your ankle. It's a more inconspicuous thing than the big black boxes they used to have, like an over-glorified wristband or step counter. It's waterproof and shockproof. But it's also got the logo of the SuperCrime Unit on it, which implies it does more than track you.

"Yeah. S'rigged so they'll drop the fucking Scuds on me if I zip around too fast."

"That's not good..." Doze's inability to be fazed by anything was of great value to the organization, but it always came across as condescending to you.

Especially when not many "supercriminals" actually survived having the Deployment Unit dropped on them. The SCU are as efficient as the dystopian literature they were probably inspired from, and that's why the only active superheroes are that big "Green Angel" and quite possibly the drag queen that kicked your ass. The tracker they use on you is the superpowered persons' badge of shame around the Bay Area, a cruel irony considering its place in history as a beacon of rights. At least until The Incident changed everything.

"I'll say. I'm surprised you got the car here without significant body damage."

You mostly mean it. Doze falling into his famous trance might be useful when he's arrested and interrogated, but at the wheel it's about the only thing your gang fears more than _you_ at the wheel. At least your ability to slow up time means you can't hear them swearing at full pitch when you put your foot down and get your getaway vans into spaces that rookie drivers consider too small.

"Look, Crow called," he begins as the car enters Golden Gate Park. "You can't keep getting yourself arrested like this."

You knew he was going to pop that shit at you. Jegus, he's almost like your parents. Or Crowbar is certainly acting like them, only _his_ boss has ways of making people disappear. You've heard enough about that that you don't want to find about those ways.

"Pff. Wasn't my fault I ran into a fucking superqueen and a Midnight Crew posse in the spann'a 30 seconds."

You can't help but insult everybody. Especially people that kick your ass. And especially people that do so with platform heels.

"Could've gotten before the going got bad though... especially when they're saying Uroboros was there too."

You wave it off. You don't want to get another argument going with this guy, otherwise you'll get heated up and he'll go into his trance - at the wheel - out of reflex just to tune you out.

You also don't want to think about the possibility that the "superqueen" and Uroboros might have saved your unconscious plush rump from more than a plush-rump-kicking by the Midnight Crew posse that was tailing you all the way to the pier.

* * *

**239X 43rd Avenue  
10:20pm**

The trip home is otherwise uneventful, the neighborhood still the same endless rows of two-story townhouses and family-owned stores save for perhaps someone finally buying up that weird submarine-topped property and the block around it on 48th and Taraval. Someone's just finished moving several crates of stuff from a neighboring trailer, but you can't see who it was that moved the stuff inside.

Why they were doing it when the rest of the neighborhood was finally going to bed is beyond you. Hopefully it's not the Crew setting up shop to take you out. You make a mental note to stake the place out later.

Your house, or rather the place you call your residence when you're not "at work," is fairly small and only accessible from a set of stairs that runs up from the driveway. It's almost like a motel, up to and including the strange smells that emanate from what goes on inside motels.

Unlike motels of course, those smells are usually not your fault.

You've almost forgotten how long it takes you to get up these stairs when you're not "sprinting".

You hang your bright yellow hat behind the door and make for the bathroom at non-superpowered running speed before Doze can get there. Gog knows he's knowingly been in there all night sometimes.

You're in there for quite a bit though. Anything that isn't room temperature seems to cause your injuries to flare up like they want to be soothed by the extremes.

You look at yourself in the mirror after you dry out, leaning forward and propping your arms up on the sink to take a good look.

You're a scrawnier thing than you figured, the old faux-incandescent light making a muted glint on your emerald lycra-like sheen. The bumps and scratches and bruises barely show now, looking only like faded dark spots and stains. But other than that there's nothing left to identify you as human or troll - apart from perhaps the shape dangling between your legs. The tradeoff though is that you're otherwise smoothed out well, none of that acne or other blemishes that mars 'fleshies' after puberty.

Itchy. It's a shitty superpowered-person name, you admit. But as a nickname at least, it's got a ring to it. Better than your old name. You have the power to go as fast as those stupid cartoon porcupines, your reflexes leave others in the dust if you can't make them trip up and fall flat trying to keep up. That's why you're the go-to guy for the Felt's courier work and getaway driving.

And you're on a fucking leg-leash until Quarters or one of the techies of the Secondary fly in from wherever they're doing their dirty work.

You slip on some briefs, grab a can of Amp from the fridge and go out into the living room where Doze is sprawled across the couch, ensnared in the more metaphorical charms of whatever he's reading on that tablet of his and sipping from a freshly-prepared cup of tea on the coffee table in front. He recoils his legs a little to make room for you plopping back onto the cushion and letting your body just sink into the old upholstery.

You put the ice-cold energy drink down next to his tea, take the controller for your Xbox One and switch on to one of your favorite first-person shooters. One such perk of your own powers is that you "acquired" the Xbox and various other high-tech gadgets around your house before launch day. 

It's not technically breaking the game when you're using your powers to deduce where those noobs are coming from. And it's not technically alerting the cops if you're not actually leaving the couch while using your powers to cause virtual havoc.

But tonight, things just aren't going well there either.

"Is there something wrong?" he suddenly asks, noticing the tension on your face as you rack up kills and perks.

You smirk, "Well yeah, I got kicked in the gut by a drag queen, arrested and clamped." You are able to say this at 'normal' pace without getting fragged in-game.

"No, I mean..." Doze turns away, before putting his tablet on the table opposite and sitting up. "You been okay?"

Your round ends, and once again you've somehow managed to carry your team to a narrow win. You swear if everybody else wasn't so slow..."It's cool, okay? Just need to blow off stress from gettin' my ass kicked and Crow actin' like my mom."

He scoots up next to you and puts his hand against your forearm out of concern anyway.

"Hey, Doze, stop acting like we're moirails or anything," you chuckle. You're a bad friend like that and you know it.

"No...we're not," he replies, knowing exactly that.

Because it doesn't matter.

The next thing you know the console's switched off and two of you are making passionate diamond-moon-pot-of-gold love across the couch. Well, it's more touchy-feely than passionate. But it makes the two of you feel good and your time powers cancel out or dilate or whatever happens that somehow causes the two of you to completely lose track of time. And you don't care about losing track of time as you glide your tongue along his neck and it doesn't feel like you're licking fabric. You've even gotten used to the "charms" rubbing against each other's skin without tearing.

When the two of you are spent the sofa's a mess again, the Amp and the tea are room temperature and you've long since been kicked from the match due to inactivity.

It's always brought a slick smile to your face remembering that Doze himself used to be a troll, although you can't now remember what his original horns were shaped like before the eirite-induced mutation process caused them to fall off. They also, curiously, caused his inner material blood and otherwise to turn a similar shade of red as yours.

If the sofa wasn't already a red shade in itself, it would have looked like he'd bled out on it. But the living room's gonna smell weird tomorrow morning - something like stale blueberries, usually - and unlike motels that smell will definitely be your fault.

Tonight, he falls asleep on top of you and that's fine.

Forget the money, the thrills, the regular headlong brushes with violent death and the painful reconstructions at Stitch's that accompany the ones that aren't regular, sometimes this is what made it worth it.

**== > FILE END**


	5. Nevada SR 311 / Reno, NV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Contains extreme species dysphoria.

**== > FILE OPEN**

**== > Be Cronus Ampora.**

**Rusty Spitoon Bar**   
**Reno, Nevada**

The spotlight is a searing mistress, but you've got your limited-edition autographed guitar to keep you cool.

You take a deep breath. Your hair is gelled back just the way you like it, your skin still currently gray under the dinky incandescent spotlights. Your guitar is in tune just the way you've spent the usual half an hour tuning it, and you're pretty sure that the tunes in your head sound just like they do in your "homemade recording studio."

You step up onto the stage, your leather heels the only sound being made apart from a ceiling fan twirling off its axes and the tobacco-laden cough of a patron or two.

" _Goooood_ evwening evwerybody, howv's it hangin' tonight?"

You are Cronus Ampora and tonight is another chance to make it, another chance to be big in the Biggest Little City in the World. A chance to headline one of the big casinos on Virginia Street and who knows, maybe even get off-Strip at Las Vegas. Hell, maybe even get your name up in big neon lights on a casino at the actual Strip and get all the wives wanting to dump their milquetoast hubbies as they invite you into their cars for a little back seat bingo.

Yeah, that'll be the day.

_"Hey waiter, gimme a stiff one."_

_"Yeah, I getcha."_

For now, you're still trying to carve yourself a piece of the entertainment pie in this tough town. You and your guitar and your sock-hopping portfolio of musical composition available for free or a small donation through PayPal. You might be, quote unquote, stuck in the 1950s, but goddamn if someone out there thinks your music is better than those weirdos on synthesizers and autotune.

At least this crowd understands what real music is.

"Heh, tough crowvd tonight. No vworry, I feel your pain. I knowv vwhat's it's like to be at rock bottom...lost vwithout your friends, family, and especially someone to lovwe."

Truth be told, you were at rock bottom for a while. Just not quite in the same fashion as the divorcees and blackjack busts that litter this outer Reno dive.

"Someone...to understand."

They never understood you when you wanted to be a human, especially not the company. They recoiled in horror when you showed up to a company function with your horns filed down and buried under tubes of greased black hair. You can hear echoes in their comments.

"Jesus, not this freak again..."

The company still has its doors officially open for you if you ever "come to your senses." And you have gone back to the Bay Area a couple of times to place a few orders for stuff you need, maybe even say hi to your little "brother".

You like the term. " _Brother_ " that is, not " _freak_." Sure you and Eridan were grown in special vats and tubes rather than a regular spawning pit, but that just makes the relationship mean much more than just two grubs randomly picked by semi-sentient animals from some puddle of slime.

You visibly wince, your fins twitching at the word "freak" though.

Maybe one day they'll understand.

* * *

 

**== > Be the Delivery Guy.**

**Nevada State Route 311  
Yesterday Morning**

The desert heat is a searing mistress, but you've got air conditioning in your truck to keep you cool.

You'll need to keep cool when you're racing for your life as fast as your Freightliner's engine will get you against someone trying to hijack your shipment.

You're the delivery guy, you've got a truck full of goods and so help you Gog, the biker dreaded among truckers straying off the beaten path from Sacramento to Reno is sniffing you out like a shark on the blood trail. Granted, you're only  _barely_ certified to be carrying the stuff you're carrying and it's not  _quite_ for the convenience stores and truck stops, but you are quickly regretting trying to shave off a couple of minutes from your travel time with a little shortcut.

You also know it's that particular biker because he's pulling up right beside you and oh gog he's pointing an energy pistol at you. And is his body actually steaming? It's gotta be 100 out here at least but even a thick leather jacket couldn't do that to anybody.

Fortunately, you have your truck to help you out. It might cost only 5% as much as however much it took this particular hijacker to customize that white-and-purple chopper of his, but it also weighs one hell of a lot more so you can sideswipe that shark.

You proceed to yank the wheel hard to the left only for him to literally leap off his bike and cling to your door with one hand, the energy pistol dangerously close to your cranium. His motorcycle literally seems to stay on balance as if it's following him.

"Stop the truck, Jack," he demands.

Your name is not Jack, and there aren't any major turns ahead.

You grab him by the gun arm, causing the pistol to discharge into your faux-leather seats. You then try to latch onto his neck, but that frees his gun arm to give you a good pistol-whipping, stunning you good.

For the next few seconds world is a blur of sound and fury signifying your efforts were for nothing.

When you regain your bearings the truck is already stopped and you're sprawled across the part of your passenger seat that got burned off by the pistol.

You get up and you can see him just getting off your bike like the last few minutes were some kind of crazy hallucination. It's not like his bike is technologically advanced enough to keep following you without losing its balance, or that he was capable of shooting your door off with his energy pistol and stopping the truck by reaching in and pulling the handbrake.

...was he?

You have no time to figure that out because now he pulls you out and you yelp as the concrete scrapes off your elbows and knees through the denim, before grabbing you by the hair and shoving you against the doubled rear tires of your own Freightliner.

This biker's got the whole leather jacket throwback going on, denim, biker cowboy boots complete with spurs, and leather gloves that have seen more than a little fisticuffs in their day.

Trucker's instinct of course says it could be anybody, but you know it's him because he's taking off the ornate bandana he wears around his face and throat and the aviators that shield his eyes from the bugs and sand.

You see, it's not just _anybody_. Unlike most supervillains, the Merman _likes_ to show his face to his victims.

His skin is tanned, like a human's. But his grin? Those are the fangs of a troll. No way those could be filed or costume stick-ons without looking awkward. Combined with piercing purple eyes, and gills(!) fluttering open and closed on his neck, it's enough to make you wonder what kind of unholy matrimony and ritualistic mating ceremony or scientific procedure would have resulted in this.

"Hi, Jack," he sneers. That's how the term originated, after all. His smile is as sharp as his fangs. The kind that, if he weren't a fucking mutant, would have made any hysterical dame or nervous broad swoon.

"I...I ain't scared of you, you _freak_!" you beg horribly because your name isn't Jack.

He drops the smile. In immediate retrospect you should definitely not have called him a freak.

"They all say that, don't they," he replies nonchalantly before he twirls something shiny in his other hand.

He beans you across the head with his biker chain and that's the last thing you see for the next few days. He wants that image burned in your mind.

The bruise that's going to be swelling on your cranium will be the least painful thing you'll have to explain to your boss compared to losing the shipment.

* * *

  **== > Be the Merman.**

You are the Merman and you've hooked in another poor sucker trying to cross your ocean of sand. The way the driver was trying not to sway the truck too much, you knew he was either loaded to the gills or loaded with something that wasn't worth risking getting damaged on the way.

And speaking of the aforementioned sucker, you've not only knocked him out cold, but you've also strapped him to the hood of his own truck with the chain.

You take your energy pistol and make short work of the chain and lock that holds this particular trailer locked, before swinging the door open and filling the inside of the crate with daylight.

The sight of its contents causes you to salivate almost visibly.

Crates upon crates of top shelf booze and smokes. The good stuff for the good life, none of that chintzy paint thinner like you find in convenience stores.

It's not guns, gold or diamonds, but the fuck if you'll find those in a standard tractor trailer traversing the state routes unless you get really lucky. But considering the health fixations and resulting vice taxes of the western states, they'll cut a healthy profit among those lowbloods and low-income humans that need a cheap fix to take a load off their stressful days.

And if these belonged to a particular gang, well, that's less profit for _them_.

A pair of unmarked vans pull up behind the truck, having hung back during your daring little raid. The drivers and passengers that step up are predictably dressed similarly to you. And you also told them to wear cheesy bandanas so nobody could recognize them in those outfits. They obviously had a problem with that given it's the 21st century and people don't dress like that anymore, but that quieted down after you...negotiated their cut with them.

"Load 'em up boys, vwe ain't got much time until the fuzz showv up!" are your orders, declared gangland-style from the entrance to the shipping crate complete with you waving your energy pistol for effect. "You knowv the dealie-o. You can vwet your beak for the vweekend, but the rest goes back to the vwarehouse and don't think I don't do the math."

"You got it, boss," the most senior of the goons replies before he directs his underlings to help him unload.

They all have that greedy twinkling in their eyes of many colorsknow you do the math. The energy-charred bodies they scoop out of the Truckee River every now and then help them remember that the Merman and his merry, well,  _Mermen_ control the gray and black market trading routes around the western I-80 Corridor among others and that's exactly how you want it to be.

"Boss, fuzz is lighting up the radio," one of the van drivers suddenly calls out.

You climb back toward the cockpit and sure enough Channel 9 on the old CB is alive with the squawks of the local piggies wanting themselves a little radiator-grilled fish filet in the trough.

"Okay boys, time to blow this pop stand," you declare before climbing down. "Remember, if you all want your cut you'd better make sure I count it all back at the warehouse, _capiche_?"

"Yes boss!" the goons shout in unison as they hop back in their vans and gun it.

While they do, you reach into the truck's cockpit and shift it to Neutral. Unfortunately you're not parked on any sort of particularly dangerous stretch of this desert, but the mild downhill grade is sure to knock the wind  _into_ the poor bastard if and when he wakes up...and make sure the cops focus on protecting innocent life.

By the time they catch the first glimpse of a runaway truck with its driver helplessly strapped to its grille, you're already miles away.

* * *

**== > Be Cronus Ampora again.**

**Rusty Spitoon Bar  
** **Back In The Present...**

Hours have passed since the Highway Patrol managed to extract a barely-alive truck driver from an overturned cargo truck on SR-311 and to be honest, you don't feel much richer than you did yesterday.

"This one's something that took more than a fewv lonely evwenings to vwrite, I call it, _Be Vwith Me Nowv_."

You begin to sing a wistful tune about love lost or never found, of gals you could never have or were simply too nice for in a world full of assholes. Emanating hopeful vibes across a crowd of the hopeless. Mounting up for another 3-minute rodeo among the gin mill cowboys and all that jazz.

_"Bartender! Make it real stiff!"_

To be honest, you haven't felt much richer since you decided to strike your lot out east with only the clothes and a guitar on your back, an old Harley Davidson and a song. Or two. Or fifty. On SoundCloud.

But those were a rough first few months scraping up enough to get your own place, to keep yourself fed and and watered and properly soaked through with sopor slime at night. And most of this was due to the fact that you're never seeing more than a trickle of your trust fund until you renounce what your company calls a "lifestyle choice."

But they _did_ still allow you access to their inventory, after all. And there were more than a few bar regulars complaining that prices were getting a bit too high on their favorite vices.

"Man, it's hard not to cry vwhen I sing that one. But there's alvways hope at the bottom'a that barrel for all the nice guys out there."

Of course, you'd know more than anyone that sometimes you've got to make your own hope.

Since you put two and two together to make five and got the ball rolling on your new day job, well, you've felt much more confident getting up on stage during your transition. Your horns have since been filed down until you can afford the removal surgery, though you are considering keeping your fin-ears as "body mods."

And speaking of body mods, you love how your old chopper transformed into what it did. If vehicles are a reflection of their owners, then yours represents the ideal. Soon you won't have to put on awkward-looking (i.e. Hollywood-grade) makeup.

 _"Why does this freak keep getting a stage every night?"_ another barfly groans before you begin your next tune.

You wince again, trying to suppress some supposedly species-specific innate violent desire to beat his melonhead to a mulch with a biker chain.

"You can all sing along if you vwant," you sigh, managing to barely do so.

You are Cronus Ampora and it's hard being a troll that wants to be human.

"This one's for all of you...and I...that feel _unvwanted_ evwery night. I call it  _Vwhere Vwill I Be Lowved."_

It's hard being labeled a "freak" and nobody understands.

But one day, they will. Even if you have to bash some melonheads into mulch with a biker chain.

One day, you will be loved.

**== > FILE END**


	6. Melbourne, VIC / Cambridge, MA

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Warning: Some people are disturbed by vomit. The author would like to let you know this actually happens near the end of this chapter. Other than that there's not much else to warn about.**
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> Hex and Tranq concepts by Bananaramses.

**Melbourne, Victoria**  
**7:02pm AEST  
**

The servo is not that busy this time of night as rush hours end, which suits you and your work perfectly. You're just there to pick up some nourishment and hydration before work, and in your punk-branded hoodie and other loose fitting clothing you can blend right in with the other commuters looking for things to nibble and sip while waiting for their cars to fill up.  
  
"Hmm. Looks like your card isn't working there, mate." The cashier doesn't look like he cares either, which also has the same effect.

"I'm aware of that," you reply exasperatedly, fiddling with your smartphone with a rapid series of swipes and thumb-taps before you slide the card in again.

A couple of satisfactory-sounding beeps later, and the cashier nods in approval. "Ah, there we go. Thanks mate."

"Thee you later," you remark non-chalantly, your lisp rough from the aforementioned lack of hydration.

"Right, see you soon. Next!"

* * *

 

**== > Sollux Captor: Go Home.**

The house you've called a home is a typical small thing out in the suburbs, not too far from the bus stop and about 10 minutes from the servo at your fast-paced "don't socialize with me" walk. There's enough room for you, your computers, a bathroom, a TV room, and your lusus all on one floor.

Speaking of your lusus, Bicyclops-dad is sprawled across the couch, drained from whatever the hell they do in the daylight hours. They're sound asleep and the TV's on low with the evening news, providing just enough noise cover for you to stroll right over to the microwave and heat up your "lunch."

90 seconds in the microwave and the burrito's ready to make its way slowly down your digestive tract.

You trek to your room, crack open that can of energy drink and place it in the specially-designated space by your computers. Yes, you have two desktop towers, because fuck you and the police, that's why. It's a space that blends in so well that anybody going into your room would be surprised that it used to be the extra bedroom.

It isn't often when an seven-and-a-half-sweep-old troll gets to work out of their own house for cash. But your room isn't just some cubicle, it's an almost completely full-featured command center. Every screen monitors something different, from processor and memory usage to stock options to the city's official traffic GPS.

You flop your scrawny body backwards into your computer seat. Your throne. A _quality_ computer chair that features cup holders (or rather one for your burrito and one for the can), the ability to adjust in four different directions, built in speakers and a vibration massage function. Because what else do computer whiz-nerds such as yourself do at this dark hour? Apart from what you're about to do, of course. And by that you mean hacking.

A fluffy, purple insect about the size of a rugby ball flutters through the ajar door and perches on your shoulder as you rouse your system out of standby, wanting a nibble of your microwave burrito. You accept her demand after you take the first ceremonial bite.

Every king needs a queen to share their realm with, and unlike certain nerds a body pillow printed with an anime character or other miscellaneous fandom crush just won't do.

Your queen bee's kingdom is comprised of an Australternian beehive out in the back yard. The honey doesn't enhance your psionics or anything, but tending to it does keep you calm sometimes and selling the honey to those hipsters in Fitzroy gives you enough legitimate income to pay the utilities. Plus, its hive queen tends to spend as much time with her keeper as she does with her subjects.

She chirps in approval despite the obviously synthetic ingredients and nuzzles close to your neck, and you give her bristly fur a few long strokes before you gently nudge her to the edge of your shoulder so you can put on your helmet, which dangles from the ceiling like H.R. Giger wired it and chose the art direction himself.

The custom-made black helmet is specifically wired to take advantage of your psionics, enabling you to keep track of all of your hacking attempts. You designed it yourself and had somebody custom-build it under the purported guise of some extremely high-quality cosplay. But the port wires that seem to sprout every which way out of it aren't just for show.

The main reason your utility bills are actually low for a room stuffed with computers like this is because the extra processing power comes directly from you.

When you were young, you were diagnosed with more than just an atypically brilliant mind. You had the ability to manifest your mental power in bicolor bursts of energy from your unusually bicolored eyes that you eventually learned to tame after some destructive outbursts. You tamed them when you discovered that you could also use your powers to enhance the processing power of virtually any electronic device you came into contact with - if you didn't figure out how to physically tamper with their innards to do so. You also found coding and programming as an outlet - and soon found out you could stick it back to the bogans who stuck it to "nerds" like you through the computers and social networks they loved instead of just sticking them into walls with psyker force.

Suddenly a netbook could wipe - and wipe the floor with - the latest in tablet technology. You could turn an ordinary flipphone into an Android-powered beast. And when you were done you could sell them on eBay or the darknet to fools who couldn't handle its power to finance your command center.

You moved up from sticking it to bogans to just sticking it to everyone on a whim, but as puberty (and a few confiscations) began to pass, you realized that there was actually a gray area - or rather, a magenta area between the red and blue. With that in mind, you've since become more..."thoughtful" in seeking out white or black hat opportunity, but that doesn't stop you from seizing these opportunities at full force.

Today, you decide you're going to put on your black hat.

With one hand feeding you the burrito and the other on the mouse, the first thing you open is your cryptocurrency manager. People might flood your inbox with encrypted requests from blackmail to background checks to bomb deliveries, but you make it clear to them that they will get what they actually send a downpayment for first.

You reference the oldest depositor to your database.

ISI Deputy Director Lieutenant-General Khan is a legendarily corrupt POS with fingers on both sides of the seemingly eternal conflict between the Pakistani military, the various tribes that reside along its otherwise perennially lawless borderlands with Afghanistan, and of course, India. Terrorists, their hunters and above all their reputations can be made or broken depending on whether he and his allies are satisfied with being on the right end of the power plays.

With all those irons in the fire, even Deputy Director Khan eventually needs to outsource his dirty laundry.

Today's assignment from him is relatively simple. A prominent journalist in Lahore dug up some particularly nasty dirt on someone Khan was looking to promote, which could spread upward to some nasty "implications" for his reputation. Rather than simply knocking off said journalist with his tribal contacts, Khan is smart enough to know that sometimes killing someone doesn't teach them their lesson.

Today he wants you to pull a double-blackmail reacharound. Khan's sources tell him that the journalist has been seen dining with certain people that could damage his credibility. Although "certain people" presents a wide-enough gray area to be little more than tabloid fodder, all you have to do is leverage your Photoshop skills and false identities and this blackmailer-to-be will never be able to show his face in Pakistan again.

And then, once he's rendered useless, someone can safely knock him off without any repercussions upward.

The downpayment is already in your designated account. Standard rate for blackmail. The shell account in the Caymans is a dummy of course. From there it will be remotely extracted and transferred into a number of different cryptocurrencies whose wallet codes you have memorized in your head, for dispensation into Euros or Renminbi later. Gog knows how much the Aussie dollar might swing these days if it wasn't bipolar enough.

That's the true secret to security. Even if someone, somehow compromises Honeycomb, they'll never get the funds you can easily use to rebuild it.

The data they want you to send is in an encrypted compressed file. Faces, locations, the usual. You get cracking almost as soon as the files get unzipped, "holstering" the burrito on your seat and whipping out your tablet for some Photoshopping. Soon it's the journalist that's being seen with some "unsavory faces."

Once the new package is prepared and giftwrapped, it needs to be delivered. In this case, you've already pulled up the servers of the largest print and broadcast media companies in Pakistan (and a few in Western India, because sending a message to someone who wants to mess with the ISI also involves sending it to whoever might be watching.) The security around those things is so laughable that you wonder how they manage to get the correct news ticker messages right every night.

But you're not here to do any of that kind of defacing. Not unless Khan gives a bonus for that.

As the data begins uploading to some blindingly slow server in Islamabad, you decide to put on the latest torrents of your relaxation material before getting onto the next assignment.

These rare archives of airplane instructional videos from the 1980s aren't going to watch themselves, you know.

Then you hear a meowbeast, directing your attention to the central monitor.

A small window has appeared on the bottom right of your that monitor, simply reading

:3

in bright pink letters.

You raise an eyebrow so hard it almost breaks through your helmet. According to the scan, apparently some kind of skript-kiddie decided to leave a message to increase their e-bulge size.

This isn't new at all. Occasionally some wannabe or wanna-bees (get iit?) looking to take on the hive manages to get into the outermost shell of your system and leave a note for bragging rights.

Truth be told, you're perfectly fine with letting those scrawny neckbearded NEETs and their freely-available distributed denial-of-service programs grab a 60 second segment every now and then with their sweatshop-made Guy Fawkes masks and voice changers on YouTube. All the more fitting when you can quietly dox them and place the blame for your more dubious misadventures on them whenever you conveniently need a scapegoat.

You have also been attacked by cyberarmies before, but thanks to backups and your prodigious knowledge of coding, Honeycomb is back up and running AND the perpetrators usually shamed before the day is up. It would take nothing less than someone putting a tainted thumbstick up your system's wastechute to really take you out of action.

Tl;dr, Nobody can ever expect to get all the way to you. You are simply the best there is.

You set up a full backtrace and in mere seconds Honeycomb exposes this wannabee's desktop somewhere in the Eastern Seaboard of the United States.

By Gog, you have never seen something so blatantly rookie. Default installed programs, shortcuts to various anime videos stored on the same drive, eye-jarring theme colors straight out of a Sweet Bro & Hella Jeff movie, all built on a solid foundation of a background from every anonymous hashtag-op video. It could be anyone from one of the aforementioned NEETs getting lucky or some rookie American government agent that thinks he's hot stuff.

There is about as much a limit to what kind of identity this ath-hole has as there is to the things you can do to this guy. That is to say, none at all. But you reiterate to yourself that you've mellowed out since your earlier days when your hats were either prospit-white or dersite-black.

Since you are leaning black hat today, you figure maybe you'll ransack his drives and maybe tell his mother/lusus/manager/authority figure off on him.

"This ath-hole ith in for a honeybuljthing now," you mutter to yourself.

You approve Honeycomb's access to the desktop. You know the more ambitious ones will try to immediately run a retaliatory backtrace to you, but unless you've stumbled upon the bait page of a well-funded cyber army they're not really a threat considering all the layers they'll have to go through.

It's time for the fun to begin.

* * *

**== > Be the athhole.**

**Massachusetts Institute of Technology**  
**Cambridge, MA**  
**9:15am EDT**

You are Roxy Lalonde and to almost anyone else, you're just a college-age girl with a penchant for skirts, cats, and pink (non-alcoholic) martinis enjoying her MacBook Pro on a crisp, clear morning in the park.

To you, well, you've just successfully aggrieved your target.

They told you he was one of the biggest rats in the hole. Intelligence agencies, armed forces, corporations and criminal syndicates could never officially pinpoint him. But they knew that even though he could support either side depending on his mood, they could get their money's worth  _if_ they could find him. And that's if they're referring to him in the singular. Maybe he was multiple rats. Nobody has ever met Hex in person, and the whole beehive mentality that seems to be a theme of his work implies Hex is more of a collective. A bee-themed mercenary hive on par with the state-sponsored cyberarmies you find yourself at odds with on a more daily basis.

More recently the agency has seen Hex swing toward the "bad" side of the table, which meant it was time to take action. However, they couldn't simply send their own in-house cyber army against what they speculated still wasn't as much a threat as opposing state cyber armies.

That's why they tapped you to try Hex's capabilities. _Mano-a-mano_ , computer-a-computer. Something like that.

To lure him out the agency gave you a persona seized from one of his customers and let you go to work.

When you were sure the trail of proxies and firewalls you extracted from that corpse had ended at an actual system, you only had to lay out the bait and hope he pounced right into the Void. In this case, the bait was a fake desktop reminiscent of a typical skript kiddie. Mustachioed mask and all. You then utilized your skills to poke the beehive and get him to notice you.

Once he did, you had to hope your reflexes kicked in to snare the trap on him. The same reflexes that allowed you to pick off anyone from parkour runners to terrorists with your trusty tranquilizer rifle during your night job protecting New England from more tangible threats.

And that's when you giggle and sic the prides of GCat OS 6.12A Void Panther - shortened and stylized v0id_panhter and yes, the misspelling is always different for security purposes- all over him.

Judging from the various responses in your windows as well as corresponding lack thereof in others, it appears you've done some kind of damage to his connection capability, along with his secure data banks.

The connection is quickly terminated, likely from a hard shutdown. Still, you've already "rescued" gigabytes worth of data from clients that hopefully haven't already been used to threaten or compromise them and transferred them to your cloud. You giggle as you begin sifting through them, decrypting them and checking them for retaliatory measures. It'll take a while to sort them out before you send them to the agency, but hey, that's what they're paying you for.

Among that data is a hefty scoop of virtual fecal matter he was likely to use on some poor soul trying to expose corruption in South Asia, bundled and compressed and intercepted during its delivery. There's also corporate secrets, sales pitches and sabotage from this side of the world as well. A lot of juicy gossip, of course, along with good old fashioned K Street and inter-agency subterfuge.

You love working for the agency, of course, but you know that a lot of these sick fires from either side of the world heat _their_ irons. Much as they'd rather not admit it, the _real_ whistleblowers and muckrakers like that journalist from Lahore need to be able to stand up for themselves when and where it matters. Those guys will be getting some anonymous copies of some of the shadier backroom dealings once the agency gets their quota from your latest raid.

By itself, it might not be enough to save the world. And they probably might end up doing as much harm than your intended good, but it's a start. Nobody ever got rewarded for doing something good without risking a little bit, right?

oUrania.415: good morning~!

And speaking of starts, Callie just logged in.

PinkMaritni: spu callie!

PinkMaritni: *sup

oUrania.415: there's a new sUperhero in town! i'm so excited!

You and Callie Ohpeee have known each other since you met each other on fanfiction sites' comments sections as children. Even though you lived in opposite timezones, you were there for each other - virtually, at least - to cope with growing up. You'd trade writing with each other, ranging from sloppy hatesnog fanfictions about superheroes to wizardly tomes. You even joshed about how one day you'd both have national best-sellers, and even fretted over each other's siblings.

You even both consoled each other when you lost your siblings to very public downfalls, although you'd never bring up either.

At least you know Rose is alive.

Somewhere.

In any case the two of you grew up to be reasonably competent pencil-pushers, or at least that's as much as both of you would let each other believe, from what you've gleaned of her dossier. And you definitely know better than to prod into her private life, or at least anything beyond said dossier.

You're a trained sniper with a tranquilizer rifle and she works (tragically?) for America's most infamous anti-superhero unit. Perhaps that's the irony that it takes someone with her knowledge of superheroes to actually go out and catch them. Maybe Callie's a superhero herself?

That would be wishful thinking.

PinkMaritni: omg

PinkMaritni: tell me more :3c

oUrania.415: they're referred to as daUphine, pronoUnced doe-fin-ay.

PinkMaritni: dafuq kind of superhore is called a dolphin?

It is at that moment that you're thankful your mother taught you French. The agency adores their "cunning linguists," as you like to call them.

PinkMaritni: *superhero

PinkMaritni: FUCK that came out wrong

oUrania.415: ^u^

Speaking of wishful thinking, you do wish sometimes that your chat client would allow you to backspace after your fast typing fingers invariably make a typo and you've already pressed the Return key. You'd probably experience similar effects if you got drunk, but you don't drink on the job.

Hangovers are another story for another time.

* * *

 

**== > Wait, you just got aggrieved!?**

Speaking of hangovers and stories going on at other times, you are now Sollux "Hex" Captor and _you_ are the one that's just been honeybulged. You should have been warned about blatantly obvious baits. Someone should have told you, dog. Now Honeycomb has been compromised, alerts and windows popping up like a bad infestation of hive rot and you can't close them fast enough as the feedback causes a psionic overload.

Any and all attempts at damage control do as much as goggles in toxic waste - that is, absolutely nothing. Not that you could do much when the sudden attack from all fronts has divided your mind and mental processes enough to make it conquerable. Your head feels like it's about to actually explode and leave Bicyclops-dad and the Victoria Police with too much of a mess to clean up.

You now have no choice but to pull the plug.

There is no physical connection between your helmet and your head apart from a few stray hairs. Brains also have no nerve endings, making them technically impervious to pain. However without running proper shutdown procedure, and under your current state of duress, it feels like you're ripping your scalp and cranium right off of your slow cooking thinksponge.

Screens flash all kinds of wrong colors with warning signs and messages indicating termination and imminent shutdown and taunting pink kittens before they all go black. Your sight does pretty much the same thing as your psionic senses freak the fuck out from a sudden power surge and the only thing you can feel in your room is the second worst migraine you've ever had in your life.

Bicyclops-dad charges into your room and finds you slumped against your blacked-out command post, trembling, groaning and sobbing because you have been non-consensually mindfucked. He pulls you into his arms. He shooshes you and your queen bee paps you with one of her wings as mustard-colored fluid drips from every orifice on your head, and bits and pieces of a cheap microwave burrito make their way up from the orifice from whence they came with every coughing motion.

Good dads. Best compound lusus. And fuck whoever did this to you, twice, up two different orifices with four different rusty gardening implements. ON EIGHT SEPARATE OCCASIONS.

You've had "blowouts" before, not nearly as destructive as in the "animays" - at least to other people.

But this, this is different. You can't even recall your emergency procedures right now as your mind is consumed with unfathomable chaos. And not the kind of chaos you want to go away. This is the kind of chaos that's marinated in frustration and anger for a target you couldn't simply flick right off. The kind that you probably do not realize is slipping blacker than the blackest hat that you currently cannot remember wearing in your state.

Bicyclops-dad rushes you to your recuperacoon and carefully strips you to your underwear before he slowly slips you in. The sopor-filled container, which in all honesty somewhat resembles a Mad Max'd barrel coffin, is considered to be more of a novelty for new-age pathology nuts and the wealthy, but you have found that immersion in sopor definitely relaxes your mind and the chaos within more than tending to your beehive.

You'll need to. Because once you cobble a new system together you're going to find out exactly who this ath-hole is and tear them another one, virtually. As you sink into your sopor with your flustered and worried queen hive bee chittering nervously as she perches on the rim, you might even have someone tear them a new one, literally.

You are Sollux "Hex" Captor and nobody can possibly beat you at hacking. You are quite simply the best there is.

You'd just rather not refer to that in _past_ tense.

**== > FILE END**


End file.
